Love

Music, sun, laughter and little feet dancing. These are the things that I will treasure about our day.

Photography by Claire Morgan

Amore

20 children - 12 toddlers, 2 newborns and 5 middle-sized children to keep things interesting. Three languages and four nations represented at the wedding ceremony. Our wedding wouldn't have been ours without them.

Photos by the wonderful Claire Morgan

Liebe

I can't leave 2013 behind without leaving you with a taste of our wedding. One fine day in September we stood amongst friends and family and said 'I do'. 

It was a magical day made up of hundreds of tiny, magical moments. There are so many things that I want to share with you about our day. I've thought long about what 'spin' to put on our wedding - DIY, destination, cross-cultural - because it was all of that, but what I most want to share is that we included everyone in our day. Twenty children - 15 toddlers, 2 newborns and 5 middle-sized kids! With a bit of planning and not much more effort we wove them into the fabric of our day; lavender to throw at the ceremony, folk music for dancing, balloons while we drank and at the end of the night babysitters to supervise sleep while the grownups danced the night away. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a vested interested including the under 5's, but honestly I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

And so here it is - our wedding (in 4 parts) - told through the eyes of the littles and one that as a mother, I am proud to tell. 

Venue: Borgo san Rocco, Savoca Italy
Wedding planner: Wedding Sicily
Photography: Claire Morgan
Dress: made by Michelle de Lacey, Melbourne Australia
Hair piece: etsy

1/52

"A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014."

E: A highlight of the week, the rubbish trucks arriving on Monday morning

Oi! We're in full-on dummy withdrawal around these parts. After a bit of prepping and preaning I managed to convince E that giving her dummies to a 'baby' that needed them more was a good idea. On Monday we wrapped up her four remaining dummies in some beautiful wrapping paper. A quick call to a heavily pregnant friend and we were in business. Seriously, what would we do without awesome Mama friends? She didn't drop a beat - of course her new baby would like the dummies! Actually she was just in the car and could pop around and pick them up. On the front step you say? I'll be there in a few minutes... E was less convinced.  After initially being right into the wrapping and sticking at some point she realised that this might actually be really happening and she got that look that kinda said whoa the train's left on this one and I'm not sure I like it.

Safe to say she's hating it. Tantrums with the occasional glimpse at a very articulate little girl. At some point last night between screaming episodes she sat up out of bed and asked "Where dummy gone? I don't want baby have it. I want it back." and a little bit later "I trying. I no want to sleep. It hard."  This, more than anything is breaking my heart. Two more days of this and the dummies are being unpacked and mysteriously appearing around the house again.  Baby can buy it's own.

Honeymoon

A few people have asked me what it was like 'honeymooning' with a 2 year old and why we didn't just allow her to have an extended sleep-over with her cousins while we relaxed and enjoyed newly married life.  The short answer is we would have missed her too much.  The longer answer is a complicated mix of parental obligations, the challenges that come with taking a 2 year old out of her comfort zone, the fact that E is part of us and we wanted her there and a very real acknowledgement that our week in Salina was the first time that it had been 'just us' holidaying since E was born. And whilst I admit it probably wasn't a traditional honeymoon it was pretty wonderful.

Salina

I appreciate that I'm doing this backwards, but turns out you don't take a lot of photographs on your wedding day. You can, however, take a few on your honeymoon. Which is what I did.  We spent a very lazy week on a sleepy island that makes up part of the Aeolian islands between Sicily and the mainland.  We slept, we ate, we read books and occasionally we mustered up the energy to visit the beach. The summer season officially ends 30th September so we had the place almost to ourselves. Pretty wonderful and the perfect antidote to the craziness that had gone on the two weeks before.  

Back home now with a thump. Jet lag and the reality of routine getting the better of all of us but at least we all now feel recharged enough to deal with whatever comes next.